Under the Weather: An early frost?

Aug. 14, 2013

To the surprise of probably nobody, July 2013 went in the books as the third-wettest July on record in Ohio, thanks to copious rainfall during the first third of the month. / National Climatic Data Center/NESDIS/NOAA

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Our afternoon temperatures probably won’t make it out of the 60s Wednesday, but if you don’t mind cool weather it will be a beautiful day with brilliant sunshine and very low humidity levels.

While a breeze has already kicked up, it should be gentler than the wind that blew in Tuesday in the wake of a couple of frontal boundaries. Temperatures dropped well into the 40s around sunrise Wednesday, but some locales in Richland County are likely to see lows in the low 40s Thursday morning.

With high pressure moving slowly to the East Coast, where it’s then expected to just sit for a while, sunny, dry weather will be the rule for the next several days, with temperatures gradually moderating back to the 80s for highs by the weekend.

It now looks like our next chance of rain could wait until the weekend is over, arriving Monday from the south. That’s still too far out to nail down, but chances are areas to the south of Mansfield will get wetter then than points north.

Projecting farther ahead, there are indications that August will finish with temperatures close to seasonal to maybe a little bit below normal in Ohio.

Looking even farther out than that, Accu-Weather has predicted that the Midwest could see a fall frost that’s two to three weeks earlier than usual. That wouldn’t be entirely surprising given the often cool summer weather we’ve seen this year.

While most area vegetable gardens will be finished before then, large-scale agricultural producers around here could be affected as some row crops have been slow to mature this season.

It should be pointed out, however, that outlooks going that far out have an accuracy rate that’s roughly 50-50. Accu-Weather is also predicting that the Midwest could see an early snowfall in late October or November. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?

Below are the weather statistics for Tuesday, Aug. 13, at my location 4 miles north-northwest of Fredericktown, Ohio: